Pakse, Tad Lo and a hospital

After a medium-comfortable 10 hour bus ride to Pakse (poor Gilles is just too big for Asia) we were pretty disappointed by Pakse itself. It is neither pretty nor is there anything to do at all - may be because many tourist-oriented locals had shut down during the Covid-years. The locals also did bot seem to be too fond of tourists. As we were mainly in Pakse to visit Vat Phou and the Bolaven Plateau, we still had things to do around.
Vat Phou was part of the Khmer empire in the early 10th century and is one of the oldest places of Khmer Hindu worship in South East Asia - even older than Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It is not as impressive as Angkor Wat as it is way smaller, nevertheless it is beautifully situated on a hill with gorgeous ancient (and very steep) stairways flanked by big trees. Very scenic!
After Vat Phou we decided to do a three day tour to and through the Bolaven plateau, which is famous for its many waterfalls en route and for Laos coffee. For the first night in Tad Lo, we got an accomodation recommended by a french guy in Luang Prabang which turned out to be exactly to our liking: a small bungalow on a small island fitting only a bed and with a balcony overlooking a small lake. The highlight of our stay in Tad Lo, however, was that we were swimming near one of the waterfalls (well, actually we were sliding it) with a local guy called Pistol and his family which were so kind and cute - we got a beer from them, just because, and the little girls showed us how to slide down the waterfall rocks 🥰 afterwards we got adopted by two dogs on our way to the bungalow and one of them (we named him Hector) stayed with us the whole evening, waiting outside the toilet and shower for us to come out and kept us company during dinner. He broke our heart by just leaving us at one point, but that was probably for the better for us ;)
As we were on route to our second destination for the night, and just when the plateau became really beautiful, Alina crashed her bike on a gravel road 🙄, hitting her knee on a stone just right to end uf with a hole and needing stiches. After being taken to the intended second destination by a laotian family, the helpful owner organised a truck to ship Alina and one of the bikes back to Pakse to the hospital while Gilles took the second bike (thankfully both bikes were still intact) to Pakse on its own. All went well, Alina got cleaned, stiched up and vaccinated against Tetanus, Gilles arrived at Pakse savely, and Alinas recovery began… Definitely an experience! 😉Read more